Steve Martin makes sharp, funny Bowl debut

Steve Martin (right) and Edie Brickell perform with the Steep Canyon Rangers at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Steve Martin (right) and Edie Brickell perform with the Steep Canyon Rangers at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The Steep Canyon Rangers go solo during their performance with Steve Martin and Edie Brickell at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Steve Martin (right) and Edie Brickell perform with the Steep Canyon Rangers at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Taylor Carr and Kelly Mack were able to walk to the Hollywood Bowl from their Hollywood home to see Steve Martin, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Madeleine Peyroux in concert on Wednesday. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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From left: Bo, Daddy, Mike and Mia arrive at the Hollywood Bowl for Wednesday's Steve Martin concert. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was the second of two openers for Steve Martin and the Streep Canyon Rangers on Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was the second of two openers for Steve Martin and the Streep Canyon Rangers on Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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The Preservation Hall Jazz Band was the second of two openers for Steve Martin and the Streep Canyon Rangers on Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Siblings Jamie and Megan Grant, from Los Angeles and New Orleans respectively, enjoy the scene at the Hollywood Bowl during Wednesday's Steve Martin concert. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

Someone as humorous as Steve Martin really shouldn't be able to play banjo so well – it simply isn't fair to the rest of us. It's also unfair that he can write so smartly, has such fine taste in art and retains that impressive head of white hair, but let's stick to the subject at hand.

Wednesday night at the Hollywood Bowl, the four-time Grammy winner for both bluegrass and comedy made fine use of his talents, leading the Steep Canyon Rangers and singer Edie Brickell in a rousing hour that was musically engaging and side-splittingly funny in just the right measure.

When he was on his five-string, Martin played it straight – for the most part. He's a truly an accomplished banjoist, not, as he claimed, "a Hollywood star hitching a ride on the bluegrass gravy train." Instrumentals such as "The Crow" and "Dance at the Wedding" were given serious, sober readings, keeping the focus squarely on musicianship.

But for between-song patter, he brought out his sincerely insincere persona.

He told the crowd, which filled about three-quarters of the amphitheater, how honored he was to make his Hollywood Bowl debut and "perform for your cell phones." He mused about his electronic tuner, which he claimed also received email and HBO – and he got the biggest laugh of the night by admitting he couldn't get CBS because it was a "Time Warner tuner."

Martin managed to bring music and comedy together on both "Jubilation Day," a winking breakup song celebrating a relationship that deserved to end, and "Atheists Don't Have No Songs," a mock-gospel number (showcasing the Steep Canyon Rangers impressive harmonies) that lobbies for an organization that demands "the he is always lower-case."

The Rangers' instrumental prowess came to the fore on "Auden's Train," with Nicky Sanders contributing a wildly inventive violin solo that incorporated elements of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood," the Who's "Baba O'Riley," the theme from The Simpsons and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance."

Brickell, who collaborated with Martin on April's "Love Has Come for You" from Rounder Records, was showcased on four songs. Her slightly quizzical, hair's-breadth behind-the-beat drawl – it still carries the mussed erotic charge of "What I Am," her 1988 hit with the New Bohemians – was employed most impressively on the train song "Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain," one of two such tunes on the set list, which Martin explained is one more than usually allowed at the Bowl yet still four less than required for bluegrass bands. She also nudged the music in a slightly more modern direction, helped along by the addition of a percussionist and electric guitar for her numbers.

Traditions treated less than traditionally was a theme throughout the evening. Opening act Madeleine Peyroux, for starters, applied old-school skills on modern pop songs. Her throaty, off-center phrasing can still occasionally veer too close to Billie Holiday, but she's become a fine interpreter of Leonard Cohen (via her most popular cover, "Dance Me to the End of Love," as well as "Bird on a Wire") and here gave a wonderful, bone-dry reading of Warren Zevon's "Desperados Under the Eaves."

New Orleans' Preservation Hall Jazz Band makes only the slightest nods to modernity; the most contemporary aspect about them might be sax player Clint Maedgen's jet-black goth haircut (he looks like he escaped from an episode of True Blood). Yet there was nothing fussy about their 45-minute set. They might not be the flashiest brass band to come out of the French Quarter, although Mark Braud's trumpet solo during "That's It," the title track of their new Sony Legacy album, brought the crowd to its feet. But they still run through a whole range of styles, from classic Dixieland to loping R&B to gospel.

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